(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to generating composite images. More particularly, the present invention relates to using motion sensors to determine movement and orientation of a camera. The data from the motion sensor is combined with multiple images taken by the camera to generate a large composite image.
(2) Related Art
Photographic and imaging systems utilize lenses which have limited fields of view. When a wider field of view is desired, a wide angle lens is used to generate a panoramic photo. A wide angle lens has the disadvantage that the lens typically produces distortion at the edges of the image. A second disadvantage of the wide angle lenses is that more subject matter is recorded per square millimeter of film resulting in a less detailed image being recorded. One method of solving the problem is to use multiple cameras or electronic sensors to record multiple images. The multiple images are subsequently recombined to produce a composite image.
In order to record scenes outside the field of view of wide angle lenses, traditional panoramic imaging systems utilized multiple cameras or a rotating camera with an automatic film advance. Preferably, the relationship between the multiple cameras was fixed. Thus, when the images were recombined, the information relating to the images was known because of the fixed relationship between the cameras. A disadvantage of such systems is that multiple cameras typically require multiple lenses, and multiple camera bodies. Thus, multiple camera systems may be bulky and are more expensive than a single camera arrangement.
Another method of generating a series of images uses a person manually moving a lens system to record a sequence of images. However, such movement often results in excessive overlap between recorded images. The excessive overlap represents excess data which consumes large amounts of memory. Excessive overlap also requires the recording of extra images. These extra images must also be stored and processed.
Attempts to reduce overlap may result in a failure to record sufficient information. A failure to record sufficient information may produce gaps between images making it difficult to reconstruct a composite image. Thus, it is desirable to design a system which can quickly and easily generate multiple images with optimum overlap regions for combination into a single composite image. Such a system will be described in the following application.